Hyderabad, February 9: The Election Commission of India has decided to hold biennial elections to the Graduates’ and Teachers’ Constituencies of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council on March 13.
The election code comes into effect from Tuesday.
This means that all Ministers from the state and the centre shall not make official visits in any district in which the biennial elections will be held.
Referring to the ongoing Racha Banda programme which has taken up in a big way by the state government, Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal clarified to the media persons at the Secretariat on Tuesday that the EC was not aware of it and it will be examined whether any policy schemes will attract and fall under the purview of the code of conduct.
The Ministers addressing the Racha Banda are not expected to call the officers for participation even in the districts where elections are not held.
Any violations will attract punishment from the statutory provisions.
The Commission has directed that special video teams shall be put in place for every tehsil.
Every political meeting shall be videographed. Ministers and other important political functionaries visiting the districts shall be video-trailed. The observers will examine the videos and report violations to the EC.
Polls will be held in the districts in the graduates constituencies of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam with 1,61,251 voters, Kadapa, Anantapur, Kurnool with 1,97,334 voters and Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor with 1,81,564 voters.
Similarly, under Teachers’ Constituencies in districts of Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad with 15,053 voters, Kadapa, Anantapur, Kurnool with 12,966 voters, Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor with 42,262 voters will go to polls.
The election notification will be issued on February 15.
Last date for filing of nominations will be on February 22, scrutiny of nominations will take place on February 23 and the last date for withdrawals is February 25.
The counting of votes will be taken up on March 15 and by March 21 the election process will be completed.
The total electors as on December 22, 2010 in the above constituencies are 5,40,149.
INN